Sunday, July 26, 2009

Certain Dates:


There are certain dates,
Which mark themselves on our heart-gates,
Not the birth, not the death,
That these two, are easier and do not hurt!



It is one day before the three-day hunger strike: I walk the narrow path that goes by one of the largest magnolia trees on the campus to yet another meeting.

To another talk on Iran,
On what will be the next heartbreaking news;
On whom among my brothers, sisters and friends are going to take the next accidental bullet in the streets of Tehran; Tehran the city I was born in almost 30 years ago.

I am near the magnolia tree, here the path gets narrower and my thoughts are all on Tehran.
I think of my brother, my mom and my aunt.

Tehran the ugliest city on earth; the city that I cannot live without,
For its vicious rush hours made me who I am today,
For its gloomy dusk, comforted my baby heart in so many of my girlish affairs.
For it is, A unique City, at least in the way it grows everyday, both on earth and in me!

Oh,
If you see Tehran once, only once, it will hold on forever without any price!

I get to the building where we are going to meet. I think of my postponed laundry basket; It was full a week ago! A commercial is playing on TV, showing a happy woman with a bright yellow puffy skirt, holding a basket full of roses, trying to cut yet another rose in her backyard garden.

They come. We meet and the image of the happy woman gardening stays with me.

It is the first day of the hunger strike: It goes by easy. I have a cold but I hang in there. My cat knows something is wrong. He just doesn’t know how long this foodless house will be a part of his life.

On the second day of the hunger strike: I cannot get out of bed. I stay in. I dream. I dream of that happy woman with a puffy skirt.

On the third day: my eyes hurt. I have never drunk so much water in my life. I am shaking.
Someone calls. I cannot answer. Then I wake up. I start to type. My fingers are weak. I write of my dream of that yellow puffy skirt.

I write:
I grew up in Tehran. I cannot be that woman in the commercial, happy with rosy cheeks, picking up flowers from the dreamy garden of her house.

But I wish I could be her; I wish I could go on with my life
I wish there were no certain dates,
That have marked me on my chests.

I wish I didn’t know about the Summer of 1988 and what happened in Tehran; The mass execution of political prisoners. I wish it had not happened to me.

I wish I hadn’t seen 18th of Tir in Tehran; July 9th 1999 Tehran University Dormitory attack. I wish I was not a student then.

I wish I hadn’t seen Neda; the shine of her eyes flying out of the TV screen!


There are certain dates, Which mark themselves on our heart-gates!

I so much wish I could be the happy woman of the commercial, that I can even smell the apple pie baking in the fake kitchen of the TV set.

But,
There are certain dates,
Which mark themselves on our heart-gates,
Not the birth, not the death,
That these two are easier and do not hurt!

Certain dates: they mark you; they make you!


I saw a happy woman on TV with a yellow puffy skirt!

I am not that woman, for so many certain dates have marked me on my chest.


A Strange View of the Capital, Austin, May 2009




5 comments:

مسعود said...

سلام دوست من
آن بخشی که با حروف ایتالیک نوشته ای از کیست؟
با احساس نوشته ای.زنانه و مادرانه.
مراقب سلامتی خودتان باشید در کانون گرم خانواده.

Tameshk said...

Masoud Jan,
The Italic parts are also mine; I just Italicized them, because they should be read with a different mood, from the rest of the piece that is Journal-like.

jeerjeerak said...

I donno what to say. I'm proud of you.

مسعود said...

آفتاب آمد دلیل آفتاب
خوشحالم که دوست نا دیده ام شاعر خوبیست.این قطعه از آن نمونه هاییست که در ایام نوجوانی چنانکه افتد و دانی ،آنها را پشت جلد دفتر و کتابمان می نوشتیم و چه حالی داشت.خداوند ان شاءالله آرامش آن زن را به تو ارزانی بدارد.

داستانک said...

خداوند به همه ی ما صبر عطا کند انشالله!
و همانطور که گفتید
امیدواریم رزوی تاریخ همه چیز را بر همگان روشن کند!
اما به نظرم آن روشنگری در آینده به درد حال و روز امروز ما نخواهد خورد!